{"id":1432,"date":"2010-01-23T21:45:09","date_gmt":"2010-01-23T12:45:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2010-01-23\/1432"},"modified":"2010-01-23T21:45:09","modified_gmt":"2010-01-23T12:45:09","slug":"japans-deep-rooted-ethos-of-fire-prevention","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2010-01-23\/1432","title":{"rendered":"Japan’s Deep-Rooted Ethos of Fire Prevention"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
\nNOTE<\/b>: Images with an icon next to them have been artificially shrunk to better fit your screen; click the icon to restore them, in place, to their regular size.\n<\/div>\n\n\n

One of the photos I posted in yesterday's introduction to\nGokayama Village<\/b><\/a> in Toyama Prefecture, Japan, was this one of Anthony\nand Fumie walking down one of the streets...<\/p>\n\n\n

<\/a>\nNikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f\/2.8 @ 28 mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>200 sec, f<\/span>\/6.3, ISO 200 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nStreet in Gokayama\nRevisited<\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n

I pointed out the silver boxes on either side of the road and in the\nbackground contain powerful water guns, on hand for fire prevention.<\/p>\n\n

It's not possible to overstate how deeply rooted the fear and respect of\nfire is ingrained into Japanese culture. Especially for the first couple of\nthousand years of modern Japanese civilization, the safety of one's house\nand family was directly related to the fire-prevention habits of everyone\nelse nearby, because if one house caught fire, it would spread to all\nhouses in the area. (Until recently... until maybe 30 or 40 years ago...\nthe vast majority of Japanese buildings were made mostly of wood.) If you\nmade a mistake,<\/span> thousands would pay, and vice-versa. Despite this ingrained\ncaution, mass conflagrations were apparently common, so the fear was well\nfounded.<\/p>\n\n

The direct fear of mass conflagration is much less now, of course, but\nyou can still see the deep-rooted cultural fear\/respect in daily life, from\n\n \u300c\u706b\u306e\u7528\u5fc3\u300d<\/span>\n\n(hinoyoujin<\/i>, “<\/span>be alert\/cautious for fire”<\/span>) printed on signs and the\nsides of buildings all over, to buckets of water still kept at the ready\noutside many people's houses. Still today on summer evenings, it's not\nuncommon to hear the resonate sound of someone hitting two thick wood\nbatons together in cadence with a chanted<\/span> “\u706b\u306e\u7528\u5fc3<\/span>”, as a\ngeneral<\/span> reminder (during the evening cooking hour, since until recently\ncooking was always done over a fire<\/span>?) to be vigilant against fires.<\/p>\n\n

It can even be seen in the difference between how ambulances and fire\nengines move in the streets: an ambulance is the most docile vehicle on\nthe road... even when on an emergency run with lights flashing and siren\nblaring, they never<\/i> exceed the speed limit. They slow down\ncautiously when approaching any intersection (even when they have the green\nlight), and generally give the feeling that the driver is a prudent<\/span>\n95-year-old grandma on the way to bingo. Other vehicles often don't open a\npath<\/span> for them, and in fact, other vehicles often pass them because they are\ngoing so slowly. The overall<\/span> impression is that the ambulance is not the\nslightest concern for anyone, except, perhaps, the person riding in the\nback about ready to die.<\/p>\n\n

One person's impending death is concern for one person, but a fire<\/span> is a\nconcern<\/span> for all. I once happened<\/span> to be on my bicycle traveling by a place<\/span>\nthat had apparently just caught fire, because as I approached,<\/span> I was shocked<\/span> to see a firetruck<\/span> careen<\/i> around a far<\/span> corner so fast that\nit almost was up on two wheels, fly<\/i> down the street towards me at\npositively breakneck speed, zig-zagging around traffic like an NYC bike\nmessenger. In very short<\/span> order, police cars, more fire engines, and\nfire-department cars of various ilk descended on the location like flies\non... er... with great number and intensity. That's the reaction I would<\/span>\nhope for if I<\/i> ever needed a trip<\/span> in an ambulance, but the only way\nI'd get it is to light myself on fire.<\/p>\n\n

Anyway, back to our world-heritage village of Gokayama, where the deep\ncultural fear of fire was ratcheted up tenfold. There were fire-fighting\nthings everywhere<\/i>, and probably even more out of sight under the\nsnow. Besides the water guns, the area was littered with underground\ncisterns (and their above-ground identification signs) and above-ground\npools to hold water for fire prevention.<\/p>\n\n

I say they're for fire prevention<\/i> and not fire fighting<\/i>\nbecause they're not there to fight fires, they're there to prevent fires\nfrom spreading.<\/p>\n\n

Most of the village was destroyed in the 1880s when one house caught on\nfire,<\/b> and the embers quickly spread the fire to the other houses. Now in case<\/span> of a fire<\/span> elsewhere in the village, all the houses can douse their\nfire-hungry thatched roofs with water, thereby preventing the spread.<\/p>\n\n

The water guns and such can be used to actually fight a fire<\/span> as well, of\ncourse, but their primary mission is fire prevention.<\/p>\n\n

<\/a>\nNikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f\/2.8 @ 32 mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>160 sec, f<\/span>\/4, ISO 900 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\n\nL<\/span>\na<\/span>\nd<\/span> \nd<\/span>\ne<\/span>\nr<\/span>\n<\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n

Passing one house that was on a level<\/span> well below the road, we could look down\nto see a ladder<\/span> hung on the side, sagging with age. (It's difficult to see behind\nthe flurry of flakes, but it's there.)<\/p>\n\n

It's almost certainly there for fires. I know that<\/span> farm houses tend to\nhave ladders on their sides so that they're available for fire fighting,\nthough I'm not entirely sure in what capacity they might serve that\npurpose, but I guess<\/span> it's so that one can quickly get up on the roof with a\nbucket<\/span> of water if needed.<\/p>\n\n

By the way, attentive readers will note an apparent discrepancy in some\nof the facts presented here and on the previous post<\/a>. Here I\nnoted<\/span> that almost the entire village was destroyed by fire in the 1880s,\nyet I mention<\/span> that some of these houses are 300 years old. If they all<\/span>\nburnt down 130 years ago, one wonders how they can be 300 years old, and the answer\nlies in a technicality<\/span>: they've been at this site<\/i> for 130 years (since after\nthe fire), but because their construction allows for them to be dismantled, moved,\nand reassembled, the village was repopulated after the fire with a combination<\/span> of\nnew construction (now 130 years old) and moved construction.<\/p>\n\n

When I heard this story from the current owner of one of the houses (one\nbuilt after the fire, so a new<\/span> one), the first thing that came to mind was\n“where did they get the houses to bring here?”, but I didn't<\/span> get a chance<\/span>\nto ask. I don't<\/span> think Home Depot sold pre-fab houses in Japan in the 1880s,\nso I'm at a loss<\/span> to explain how one suddenly in need of a house<\/span> would\nprocure one. If I visit<\/span> again, I'll have to ask.<\/p>\n\n

Continued here...<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the photos I posted in yesterday's introduction to Gokayama Village<\/b> in Toyama Prefecture, Japan, was this one of Anthony and Fumie walking down one of the streets...<\/p>

I pointed out the silver boxes on either side of the road and in the background contain powerful water guns, on hand for fire prevention.<\/p>

It's not possible to overstate how deeply rooted the fear and respect of fire is ingrained into Japanese culture. Especially for the first couple of thousand years of modern Japanese civilization, the safety of one's house and family was directly related to the fire-prevention habits of [...]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1432"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1432"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1432\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}